The Year of Learning Dangerously: Adventures in Homeschooling by Quinn Cummings

Overview from Barnes and Noble:

Think homeschooling is only for a handful of eccentrics on either end of the political spectrum? Think again. Today in America, two million primary- and secondary-school students are homeschooled. Growing at a rate of 10 percent annually, homeschooling represents the most dramatic change in American education since the invention of the mimeograph—and the story has only just begun.

In The Year of Learning Dangerously, popular blogger, author, and former child actor Quinn Cummings recounts her family’s decision to wade into the unfamiliar waters of homeschooling—despite a chronic lack of discipline, some major gaps in academic knowledge, and a serious case of math aversion. (That description refers to Quinn.)

Trying out the latest trends, attending key conferences (incognito, of course), and recounting the highlights and lowlights along the way, Quinn takes her daughter’s education into her own hands, for better and for worse. Part memoir, part social commentary, and part how-not-to guide, The Year of Learning Dangerously will make you laugh and make you think. And it may or may not have a quiz at the end. OK, there isn’t a quiz. Probably.

My thoughts:
When my oldest two children were younger I went through a time when I wanted to homeschool.  I loved the idea of it and of being able to keep them with me.  Planning field trips and learning at their pace, being able to use their interests to make learning personal and meaningful, but my husband wasn't in favor of the idea and then we had two more children and now I think it would be really hard to be working with all four of them on my own for all their educational needs.  One of the things that really struck me when I started this is how different it must be to just have one child.

Cummings does a great job of making her book entertaining while relating her year homeschooling her daughter and the research she did into the different groups who are homeschooling in America.  The history of homeschooling and even how it is handled in different countries.  I am not sure I would have wanted to disguise myself in order to attend conferences for fundamentalist groups of homeschoolers, but she made it fun and entertaining while still managing to teach something along the way.  If all history books and lessons could be done in such an entertaining fashion I think students of all ages would learn more!

I found myself loving this book.  I picked it up off the shelf at the library when the title jumped out at me.  Sometimes I find the best books that way.  I may or may not have seen a review of it in a magazine, but it just looked like a book I wanted to read.  I found it interesting how she dealt with teaching subjects that she herself wasn't the best at (which had been one of my concerns when I was thinking about homeschooling myself six years ago).  It will be interesting to see if she writes any more books on this subject.

Product Details

• ISBN-13: 9780399537608
• Publisher: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
• Publication date: 8/7/2012
• Pages: 240

Meet the Author

Quinn Cummings is an Oscar-nominated actress (The Goodbye Girl, Family), and the critically acclaimed author of the memoir Notes from the Underwire. She writes the popular blog The QC Report, and her work has appeared in Good Housekeeping, Los Angeles Magazine, and Newsweek. She lives in Los Angeles with her partner and daughter.

When You Are Engulfed In Flames by David Sedaris (audio)

Overview from Barnes and Noble:

"David Sedaris's ability to transform the mortification of everyday life into wildly entertaining art," (The Christian Science Monitor) is elevated to wilder and more entertaining heights than ever in this remarkable new book.
Trying to make coffee when the water is shut off, David considers using the water in a vase of flowers and his chain of associations takes him from the French countryside to a hilariously uncomfortable memory of buying drugs in a mobile home in rural North Carolina. In essay after essay, Sedaris proceeds from bizarre conundrums of daily life-having a lozenge fall from your mouth into the lap of a fellow passenger on a plane or armoring the windows with LP covers to protect the house from neurotic songbirds-to the most deeply resonant human truths. Culminating in a brilliant account of his venture to Tokyo in order to quit smoking, David Sedaris's sixth essay collection is a new masterpiece of comic writing from "a writer worth treasuring" (Seattle Times).

My thoughts:
I guess I have been converted, I really enjoy Sedaris now.  A few weeks ago when I started his audio books I did so skeptically as I recall having an uneven experience the first time I read one, but now I am really enjoying his essays.  I think the audio version is more fun for me than if I were reading them on the page as I can listen to his inflections for each essay.  I think it would be hard to be a member of his family.  I hope his essays are exaggerated and he isn't really sitting around watching his boyfriend's elderly mother clean his apartment.  In earlier books he told lots of stories about the French classes he enrolled in both in the US and in France and now he is in Tokyo taking Japanese language classes and quitting smoking.  He talks about how he gave up drugs and alcohol.  One funny story deals with how different cultures react when he says "No thanks" to a drink, in the US people get apologetic for even asking while in Europe they suggest he just have one glass as a compromise.  He has come to see it is easier to accept champagne at a wedding and pass it along to Hugh than to go through even trying to decline it.  I a m now wondering if I may have listened to condensed version of his earlier books when I borrowed the boxed set, so i may go back and try them again to see if I missed anything.

Product Details

• ISBN-13: 9780316154680
• Publisher: Little, Brown & Company
• Publication date: 6/2/2009
• Pages: 336

My Extraordinary Ordinary Life by Sissy Spacek with Maryanne Vollers

Overview from Barnes and Noble:

In her delightful and moving memoir, Sissy Spacek writes about her idyllic, barefoot childhood in a small East Texas town, with the clarity and wisdom that comes from never losing sight of her roots. Descended from industrious Czech immigrants and threadbare southern gentility, she grew up a tomboy, tagging along with two older brothers and absorbing grace and grit from her remarkable parents, who taught her that she could do anything. She also learned fearlessness in the wake of a family tragedy, the grief propelling her "like rocket fuel" to follow her dreams of becoming a performer.

With a keen sense of humor and a big-hearted voice, she describes how she arrived in New York City one star-struck summer as a seventeen-year-old carrying a suitcase and two guitars; and how she built a career that has spanned four decades with films such as Carrie, Coal Miner’s Daughter, 3 Women, and The Help. She details working with some of the great directors of our time, including Terrence Malick, Robert Altman, David Lynch, and Brian De Palma—who thought of her as a no-talent set decorator until he cast her as the lead in Carrie. She also reveals why, at the height of her fame, she and her family moved away from Los Angeles to a farm in rural Virginia.

Whether she’s describing the terrors and joys of raising two talented, independent daughters, taking readers behind the scenes on Oscar night, or meditating on the thrill of watching a pair of otters frolicking in her pond, Sissy Spacek’s memoir is poignant and laugh-out-loud funny, plainspoken and utterly honest. My Extraordinary Ordinary Life is about what matters most: the exquisite worth of ordinary things, the simple pleasures of home and family, and the honest job of being right with the world. "If I get hit by a truck tomorrow," she writes, "I want to know I’ve returned my neighbor’s cake pan."

My thoughts:
I listened to this audio book over the course of a couple days.  It was a very gentle read and focused a lot more on family than on the movie aspect of Spacek's life.  She spent long periods reminiscing about growing up in a small town in Texas with two brothers, of walking barefoot in the grass and exploring the courthouse, and of the tragedy that befell her family when she was young.  She is honest about how her dreams of being a musician didn't quite work out the way she thought they would and about being a new actor and having to earn her way into parts.  You can hear the love she has for her husband and daughters in her voice and in how proud she is of what they have all accomplished.  I think having Spacek do her own reading really added to the book because it felt like you were sitting down in a room with her and having her tell you her all about herself.  It feels like an intimate conversation at a party. One of the reviews I saw online complained that the book was too slow a read, but I think part of the slowness is deliberate to bring about the feelings of a time gone by when people were not as obsessed with moving fast and doing so much at the same time.  A time before cell phones and texting and computers everywhere.  I enjoyed the book especially in its audio format.

Product Details

• ISBN-13: 9781401324360
• Publisher: Hyperion
• Publication date: 5/1/2012
• Pages: 288

Oink: My Life with Mini-Pigs by Matt Whyman

Overview from Barnes and Noble:

Paris Hilton carries one around like a Chihuahua, while Posh and Becks own a pair. The minipig, for reasons unknown, has become the latest celebrity accessory, but what's it really like to invite little livestock into the living room?Matt Whyman, a successful novelist, enjoys a quiet writer's life in the English countryside . . . until his career wife, Emma, discovers the existence of a pig said to fit inside a handbag. She believes not one but two would be a perfect addition to the already diverse Whyman clan, which includes one wolf-like dog, a freaked-out feline, and their wild bunch of ex-battery chickens, as well as four challenging children. In reality, nobody could anticipate the trials and misadventures two riotous, raucous little piglets could bring. From turning Whyman's office into a literal pigsty and stealing his spot on the family sofa to trashing his neighbour's garden while drunk on fermented apples, Butch and Roxi swiftly establish themselves as "animals of mass distraction."Funny, touching and endlessly entertaining, Oink charts the battle of hearts, snouts, and minds between a family man and two minipigs. Will Butch and Roxi ever settle down, or could their growing presence put the squeeze on Whyman in ways he never thought possible?

My thoughts:
Every time I looked through the available memoirs on the library audio book catalogue this one intrigued me  I enjoyed reading about Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World and Puppy Dairies: Raising a Dog Named Scout, so why not mini-pigs?  I did not find his book quite as engrossing as the others, but somehow I just couldn't stop listening, so I guess I like it more than I thought!

Whyman is a work at home author.  He and his wife have four children, a dog, a cat and some chickens, but his wife has fallen in love with the idea of mini-pigs and they end up owning a pair.  Whyman gets a home all read for them outside only to find that his family intends to have he pigs live in he house. The pigs make tons of noise whenever he gets a phone call, use the area behind the TV as their potty, chew up buttons on he remote and wires and steal Whyman's seat on the couch.  While the pigs, who eventually get a home outside, cause quite a few headaches, it turns out that they complete the family.  I can't see ever wanting to own them myself, but I am sure their cuteness has gotten the quite a few owners.  I was surprised about how many embarrassing events the author was willing to document in his book.  I think anyone contemplating owning a new pet should read an account of what ownership was like for someone else.

Product Details

• ISBN-13: 9781451618280
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 9/20/2011
• Pages: 336

Meet the Author

Matt Whyman is the critically acclaimed author of three novels for adults and young adults, including the acclaimed critics’ choice Boy Kills Man. He lives in West Sussex, England. Visit him at MattWhyman.blogspot.com.

Run!: 26.2 Stories of Blisters and Bliss by Dean Karnazes

Overview from Barnes and Noble:

In his follow-up to the best-selling Ultra-Marathon Man, world-renowned ultra marathoner Dean Karnazes chronicles his unbelievable exploits and explorations in gripping detail; Karnazes runs for days on end without rest, across some of the most exotic and inhospitable places on earth, including the Australian Outback, Antarctica, and the back alleys of New Jersey.

From the downright hilarious to the truly profound, the stories in Run! provide readers with the ultimate escape and offer a rare glimpse into the mindset and motivation of an extreme athlete, one who has, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer, “Not only pushed the envelope but blasted it to bits.”

Karnazes addresses pain and perseverance, and he also charts the emotional as he pushes to the edges of human achievement. The tales of the friendships he’s cultivated on his many adventures around the world warm the heart, and are sure to captivate and inspire readers whether they run great distances, modest distances, or not at all.

The hardcover edition was met with the enthusiastic support of Karnazes’s devoted fan base, and word-of-mouth excitement as well as media coverage from LIVE! with Regis and Kelly brought the book to the attention of scores of new readers. Karnazes’s colorful tales of his extreme running adventures are as entertaining as they are innately human, giving the book potential as a perennial paperback favorite.

My thoughts:
Until recently I don't know how aware I was of ultrarunning, I knew about marathons but I am not sure I was aware people ran even longer races.  Reading about the dedication and training runners go through to run races of 50 miles or more I wonder if I have that in me, but I am suspecting I do not.  I've seen Dean's picture in running magazines, espcially for Road ID ads, but I didn't know about him specifically until I picked this book up at the library.

I liked how Dean tells of not only his successes, but also of his failures to complete races and times he ended up in need of medical care due to some of these races, specifically Badwater which happens during the summer in Death Valley.  Dean had to attempt his one more than once to finish it.  To me this shows that even the best trained athletes are not infallible and that a setback or disappointment is just that, you don;t have to quit a sport or an endeavor just because it didn't work out the first time.

One of the feats Dean attempts is to break the Guinness Book World Record for miles run on a treadmill in a 48 hour period.  He did this for the Live!  With Regis and Kelly show and was on air or online for the 48 hour attempt with a representative nearby to authenticate his performance.  The record holder is a non athlete who goes around breaking records from the book.  After reading about his training and the times he has won the coveted Silver Belt Buckle for completing endurance events in under 24 hours I doubt that the record holder was truthful in the number they submitted.

An analogy that stuck with me is that we are all in cages with the doors open, it is our fear that keeps us from attempting our dreams.  The only thing holding us back is ourselves!

Product Details

• ISBN-13: 9781605292793
• Publisher: Rodale Press, Inc.
• Publication date: 3/1/2011
• Pages: 272

Meet the Author

Dean Karnazes was named by Time magazine as one of the Top 100 Most Influential People in the World. A New York Times bestselling author, he has written for Runner’s World and Men’s Health. He lives in the San Francisco Bay area.

Running on Empty: An Ultramarathoner's Story of Love, Loss, and a Record-Setting Run Across America by Marshall Ulrich

Overview from Barnes and Noble:

A fascinating glimpse into the mind of an ultramarathon runner and the inspirational saga of his run across America.

The ultimate endurance athlete, Marshall Ulrich has run more than one hundred foot races averaging over one hundred miles each, completed twelve expedition-length adventure races, and ascended the seven summits— including Mount Everest. Yet his run from California to New York—the equivalent of running two marathons and a 10k every day for nearly two months straight—proved to be his most challenging effort yet. In Running on Empty he shares the gritty backstory of his run and the excruciating punishments he endured on the road. Ulrich also reaches back nearly thirty years to when the death of his first wife drove him to run from his pain.

Ulrich’s memoir imbues an incredible read with a universal message for athletes and nonathletes alike: face the toughest challenges, overcome debilitating setbacks, and find deep fulfillment in something greater than achievement.

My thoughts:
I cannot see myself ever becoming someone who runs ultramarthons, I am a still feeling intimidated by the marathon I have coming up in October.  My longest run to date is 18 miles, but it is so interesting to find out what runners are thinking about and what drives them to go such long distances.  After reading about this cross country journey I am unsure how he managed to stick with it through it with injury and pain and the stress of running 40 to 70 miles a day!

Marshall started running when his first wife and first love was diagnosed with cancer as a way to bring down his blood pressure since the doctor thought the rise in levels was stress related.  He discovered he enjoyed it and was good at it, so he kept going for longer distances until he ended up doing ultramarathons.  His running and the time he spent training and racing affected his relationships with subsequent wives and his three children.  Marriage two and three ended in divorce.  His current wife Heather came along to support him in his run across the country.  His children came out a different points of the route to lend their support as well, but for the most part he was alone running  for the majority of each day.

Once Marshall started his journey there was an illustration of a runner on the bottom of each page and 53 dots representing each of the days.  The chapter headings told you what days he was on at that point and the runner moved in correspondence to which days were on the page, making its way from left to right as the book progressed.  I loved that idea!  Elevation was also noted and the line for the journey went up and down according to his general elevation for that day.

Marshall did something very few of us would even consider, and even less actually complete, and decided to share in his own words what the journey was like and what it meant to him.  There were highs and lows and a friendship that disintegrated, but it also sounds like he had a lot of time to work through issues from his life and was able to come out at a better place mentally than where he started.

Product Details

• ISBN-13: 9781583334904
• Publisher: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
• Publication date: 4/3/2012
• Edition description: Reprint
• Pages: 320

Meet the Author

Marshall Ulrich is an extreme-endurance athlete, ultrarunner, mountaineer, and adventure racer. His career has earned him wins, records, and firsts on some of the toughest courses in the world and has taken him to the top of the highest mountains. He lives in Idaho Springs, Colorado.

Naked by David Sedaris

Overview from Barnes and Noble:

In Naked, David Sedaris's message alternately rendered in Fakespeare, Italian, Spanish, and pidgin Greek is the same: pay attention to me.
Whether he's taking to the road with a thieving quadriplegic, sorting out the fancy from the extra-fancy in a bleak fruit-packing factory, or celebrating Christmas in the company of a recently paroled prostitute, this collection of memoirs creates a wickedly incisive portrait of an all-too-familiar world. It takes Sedaris from his humiliating bout with obsessive behavior in A Plague of Tics to the title story, where he is finally forced to face his naked self in the mirrored sunglasses of a lunatic. At this soulful and moving moment, he picks potato chip crumbs from his pubic hair and wonders what it all means.
This remarkable journey into his own life follows a path of self-effacement and a lifelong search for identity, leaving him both under suspicion and overdressed.

My thoughts:
I enjoyed this one much more than Sedaris's earlier two books.  It was a lot more like Me Talk Pretty One Day than Barrel Fever.  My audio book all ran together, since as soon as one book ended the next one started, so I kind of lost track of which segments went with which book.  I did find the part about going to a nudist colony for a brief time funny and entertaining.  A man goes to the restroom and comes back with a ring on his butt and white paper left behind.  A woman is able to sit in the sauna naked but has a hard time using the correct anatomic terms for private body parts and he finds people tend to stay around the colony to avoid having to get dressed to go somewhere else.  Having Sedaris and his sister Amy doing the reading lent it an edge it might not have had with a different narrator.  I had somewhat sworn him off after my first reading, seven years ago, of Me Talk Pretty One Day.  I felt it was an uneven book, with the the second half being markedly better than the first, but now I am interested in seeing what some of his more recent books are like.

Product Details

• ISBN-13: 9780316777735
• Publisher: Little, Brown & Company
• Publication date: 6/1/1998
• Edition description: Reprint
• Pages: 224

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris (audio)

Overview from Barnes and Noble:

A recent transplant to Paris, humorist David Sedaris, bestselling author of "Naked", presents a collection of his strongest work yet, including the title story about his hilarious attempt to learn French. A number one national bestseller now in paperback.

Table of Contents

One Go Carolina.....3
Giant Dreams, Midget Abilities.....16
Genetic Engineering.....32
Twelve Moments in the Life of the Artist.....39
You Can't Kill the Rooster.....60
The Youth in Asia.....69
The Learning Curve.....83
Big Boy.....97
The Great Leap Forward.....100
Today's Special.....120
City of Angels.....125
A Shiner Like a Diamond.....132
Nutcracker.com.....142
See You Again Yesterday.....153
Me Talk Pretty One Day.....166
Jesus Shaves.....174
The Tapeworm Is In.....181
Make That a Double.....187
Remembering My Childhood on the Continent of Africa..... 192
Down.....201
The City of Light in the Dark.....205
I Pledge Allegiance to the Bag.....211
Picka Pocketoni.....219
I Almost Saw This Girl Get Killed.....228
Smart Guy.....239
The Late Show.....248
I'll Eat What He's Wearing.....265

My thoughts:
I read this book six or seven years ago for a book club.  I put it off until a couple days before we were meeting and had to read it all at once with a deadline looming.  My thoughts at the time were that I hated the first half and thought the second half was really funny.  I wondered how it would have been if I hadn't felt the rush to finish it before meeting to discuss it.  This book was part of the audio set I borrowed from the library last week and I enjoyed it much more this time.  I feel like Sedaris's books got better as he got older.  I didn't enjoy the first two in the set as much, but this one and Naked had me laughing out loud to parts.  I especially liked how he portrayed learning another language and how his French class was going.  Making fun of how he and his classmates were messing up sentence structures and verbs, how he would buy two of things at the market because when you have more than one of something you didn't need to know if the item was male or female.  How he and classmates tried to describe to a student who did not celebrate Easter what the holiday was about.  The giant bell that leaves treats or the bunny who leaves chocolate and Jesus who was dead who was then not dead and with someones father.  This one was so much more enjoyable than the first two! 

Product Details

• ISBN-13: 9780316776967
• Publisher: Little, Brown & Company
• Publication date: 6/5/2001
• Edition description: Reprint
• Pages: 288

Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake by Anna Quindlen

Overview from Barnes and Noble:

In this irresistible memoir, the New York Times bestselling author and winner of the Pulitzer Prize Anna Quindlen writes about looking back and ahead—and celebrating it all—as she considers marriage, girlfriends, our mothers, faith, loss, all the stuff in our closets, and more.

As she did in her beloved New York Times columns, and in A Short Guide to a Happy Life, Quindlen says for us here what we may wish we could have said ourselves. Using her past, present, and future to explore what matters most to women at different ages, Quindlen talks about

Marriage: “A safety net of small white lies can be the bedrock of a successful marriage. You wouldn’t believe how cheaply I can do a kitchen renovation.”

Girlfriends: “Ask any woman how she makes it through the day, and she may mention her calendar, her to-do lists, her babysitter. But if you push her on how she really makes it through her day, she will mention her girlfriends. Sometimes I will see a photo of an actress in an unflattering dress or a blouse too young for her or with a heavy-handed makeup job, and I mutter, ‘She must not have any girlfriends.’ ”

Stuff: “Here’s what it comes down to, really: there is now so much stuff in my head, so many years, so many memories, that it’s taken the place of primacy away from the things in the bedrooms, on the porch. My doctor says that, contrary to conventional wisdom, she doesn’t believe our memories flag because of a drop in estrogen but because of how crowded it is in the drawers of our minds. Between the stuff at work and the stuff at home, the appointments and the news and the gossip and the rest, the past and the present and the plans for the future, the filing cabinets in our heads are not only full, they’re overflowing.”

Our bodies: “I’ve finally recognized my body for what it is: a personality-delivery system, designed expressly to carry my character from place to place, now and in the years to come. It’s like a car, and while I like a red convertible or even a Bentley as well as the next person, what I really need are four tires and an engine.”

Parenting: “Being a parent is not transactional. We do not get what we give. It is the ultimate pay-it-forward endeavor: We are good parents not so they will be loving enough to stay with us but so they will be strong enough to leave us.”

From childhood memories to manic motherhood to middle age, Quindlen uses the events of her own life to illuminate our own. Along with the downsides of age, she says, can come wisdom, a perspective on life that makes it satisfying and even joyful. Candid, funny, moving, Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake is filled with the sharp insights and revealing observations that have long confirmed Quindlen’s status as America’s laureate of real life.

My thoughts:

My thoughts:

I listened to this book a month or so ago and somehow missed it on my last list of books to review. I was reminded of it when I read a review on someone else's blog last week. I really enjoy memoirs like this one, women sharing what they have learned from their past in funny and relatable ways. All of the excerpts above resonated with me, especially the one about how our minds are so full that we have trouble remembering new things. I feel like every day I am trying to keep track of so many things that I am often forgetting important deadlines.

Another chapter that made me feel better about some of my recent choices was when Quindlen talked about not enrolling her three children in too many sports activities. Instead of feeling guilty, as I sometimes do when I skip signing one or more of my children up for something like that, she states that she had three children so they could play with each other and she could get some time to herself. It can be overwhelming to drag one or more kid all over town to practice for and play a sport when they seem to get so little out of it in the long run. They enjoy it, but might have enjoyed just as much playing at the park or in the back yard or riding their bike up and down the block, I feel so much pressure to enroll my children in activities but I don't always think the time and energy I have to put into getting them there and fed beforehand and homework done is really worth it. If they find something they love and are passionate about then of course I will support them, but so far I haven’t seen that. When my daughter decided last year, after four prior years of lessons, that she did not want to take dance lessons any more I was at first sad, then I thought about the hour a week we all spent in the waiting room and the month fee and the costume and tights and recital, and I actually felt relieved.

I like no nonsense reflections that affirm life as we live it.

Product Details

• ISBN-13: 9781400069347
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Publication date: 4/24/2012
• Pages: 208

Meet the Author

More by this Author

• Every Last One
• One True Thing
• Black and Blue
• A Short Guide to a Happy Life

Anna Quindlen

Anna Quindlen is a novelist and journalist whose work has appeared on fiction, nonfiction, and self-help bestseller lists. Her book A Short Guide to a Happy Life has sold more than a million copies. While a columnist at The New York Times she won the Pulitzer Prize and published two collections, Living Out Loud and Thinking Out Loud. Her Newsweek columns were collected in Loud and Clear. She is the author of six novels: Object Lessons, One True Thing, Black and Blue, Blessings, Rise and Shine, and Every Last One.

Heaven is for Real by Todd Burpo

Overview from Barnes and Noble:

"A beautifully written glimpse into heaven that will encourage those who doubt and thrill those who believe."

-Ron Hall, coauthor of Same Kind of Different as Me

"Do you remember the hospital, Colton?" Sonja said. "Yes, mommy, I remember," he said. "That's where the angels sang to me."

When Colton Burpo made it through an emergency appendectomy, his family was overjoyed at his miraculous survival. What they weren't expecting, though, was the story that emerged in the months that followed-a story as beautiful as it was extraordinary, detailing their little boy's trip to heaven and back.

Colton, not yet four years old, told his parents he left his body during the surgery-and authenticated that claim by describing exactly what his parents were doing in another part of the hospital while he was being operated on. He talked of visiting heaven and relayed stories told to him by people he met there whom he had never met in life, sharing events that happened even before he was born. He also astonished his parents with descriptions and obscure details about heaven that matched the Bible exactly, though he had not yet learned to read.

With disarming innocence and the plainspoken boldness of a child, Colton tells of meeting long-departed family members. He describes Jesus, the angels, how "really, really big" God is, and how much God loves us. Retold by his father, but using Colton's uniquely simple words, Heaven Is for Real offers a glimpse of the world that awaits us, where as Colton says, "Nobody is old and nobody wears glasses."

Heaven Is for Real will forever change the way you think of eternity, offering the chance to see, and believe, like a child.

My thoughts:
I listened to this audio book a couple months ago, but got so bogged down that I am just getting around to reviewing it now.  This book got so much press that I felt like I needed to read it.  I got a copy of it on Paperbackswap and it just sat on my shelf.  I picked it up to try to start it and didn't get anywhere, which is unusual for me.  Then I decided to check the audio book out of the library instead.  I was not a big fan of the narrator chosen for the audio book, I think I would have liked to have heard it read by the author instead as it is about real events, not a work of fiction.  Since Burpo is a pastor who is used to public speaking, I think this book would have been better with him reading it.

I believe in heaven, but I have to wonder if the experience will be the same for everyone.  I was hoping that reading this book would remove some of my skepticism about the book itself, and i feel like it should have, but some of that doubt about if this story is real or made up to help people believe more fully in times of need is still there.  Would a four year old really have remembered all those details?  Did his parents lead him on and embellish his memories without really meaning to?  I believe he was out of his body during the surgery and even that he may have been to heaven during that time, but all of the details provided in his descriptions over the course of time actually made me believe less rather than more?  The abundance of details made me less willing to believe rather than more. 

I think it is great that so many people have gotten a lot of hope out of this book and it has not lessened that I think heaven is for real, but some of the descriptions did not seem authentic to me for a child that young.  Maybe growing up in a religious family  had something to do with it or the rephrasing by his father changed things around.  I hope that Colton is right and that no one is old in heaven and no one needs glasses.

Product Details

• ISBN-13: 9780849946158
• Publisher: Nelson, Thomas, Inc.
• Publication date: 11/2/2010
• Pages: 163

About Todd Burpo

Todd Burpo is the pastor of Crossroads Wesleyan Church in Imperial, Nebraska (Population: 1,762) where his sermons are broadcast locally every Sunday via the local radio station. He volunteers at Chase County Public Schools as wrestling coach for Junior high school students, as well as serving as a member of the school board. In emergencies Todd can be found working shoulder-to-shoulder with the Imperial Volunteer Fire Department as a fire fighter. He is also the chaplain for the Nebraska State Volunteer Firefighter's Association.

The Puppy Diaries: Raising a Dog Named Scout Jill Abramson

Overview from Barnes and Noble:

An instructive and marvelously entertaining chronicle of a puppy's first year, by the executive editor of The New York Times

One sparkling summer day, Jill Abramson brought home a nine-week-old golden retriever named Scout. Over the following year, as she and her husband raised their adorable new puppy, Abramson wrote a hugely popular column for The New York Times's website about the joys and challenges of training this rambunctious addition to their family. Dog-lovers from across the country inundated her with e-mails and letters, and the photos they sent in of their own dogs became the most visited photo album on the Times's site in 2009.

Now Abramson has gone far beyond the material in her column and written a detailed and deeply personal account of Scout's first year. Part memoir, part manual, part investigative report, The Puppy Diaries continues Abramson's intrepid reporting on all things canine. Along the way, she weighs in on such issues as breeders or shelters, adoption or rescue, raw diet or vegan, pack-leader gurus like Cesar Millan or positive-reinforcement advocates like Karen Pryor.

What should you expect when a new puppy enters your life? With utterly winning stories and a wealth of practical information, The Puppy Diaries provides an essential road map for navigating the first year of your dog's life.

My thoughts:
I listened to this audio book on my ipod while running and cleaning.  While I have never owned a large dog, the largest of the five dogs I've had was a small beagle, I can definitely identify with the challenges of raising a puppy.  House training, guilt about leaving the dog alone for longer than planned, destroyed items like shoes and more, and how to deal with a dog pulling on a leash.  I can see how all of this would be even harder with a larger dog who would be even stronger and could pull harder, who could reach higher on counters and shelves and who could destroy even more.

I think anyone who has ever owned a dog, or anyone thinking about getting one for the first time would benefit from this book.  At one point Abramson tells how she and her husband left Scout with their son while they were away on a trip.  At that point in time her son and his girlfriend were thinking about getting a dog, when they gave Scout back upon the parent's return return the young couple informed them that, although they still wanted to get a dog at some point, they now knew they were not ready for one at this point. 

Having a puppy is so much like having a newborn baby in the house.  You give up sleeping late and not having to think about how long you are going to be gone.  There are places you just can't take them, both babies and puppies, and a lot of people just don't take all those things into consideration. 

Product Details

• ISBN-13: 9780805093421
• Publisher: Holt, Henry & Company, Inc.
• Publication date: 10/11/2011
• Pages: 256

Meet the Author

JILL ABRAMSON, a bestselling and award-winning author, is the executive editor of The New York Times. An unabashed dog-lover, she has long been fascinated by the complex relationship between dogs and their owners. She, her husband, and Scout live in New York City and Connecticut.

Lies Chelsea Handler Told Me by Chelsea's Family, Friends and Other Victims

Overview

"My tendency to make up stories and lie compulsively for the sake of my own amusement takes up a good portion of my day and provides me with a peace of mind not easily attainable in this economic climate."--Chelsea Handler, from Chapter 10 of Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang

It's no lie: Chelsea Handler loves to smoke out "dumbassness," the condition people suffer from that allows them to fall prey to her brand of complete and utter nonsense. Friends, family, co-workers--they've all been tricked by Chelsea into believing stories of total foolishness and into behaving like total fools. Luckily, they've lived to tell the tales and, for the very first time, write about them.

My thoughts:
Here is my first confession, I didn't read the description well enough and actually thought I was ordering a new book by Chelsea.  I know it is very clear that it is not written by her, but I was placing a quick Amazon order and needed to have $25 to get the free super saver shipping, so I added a book from my wish list not really paying attention to it as I should have.  It turned out to be a funny book and I enjoyed it, but it was just another reminder that, even though I love to read, I need to make sure I am reading the fine print.  I would hate to miss something more important than the author of a book!  (Actually, yesterday i went to the store because I really wanted ice cream cake.  It was hot, I'd run 10 miles and felt like I could splurge on it.  My daughter and I ran in quick, I shopped by price in the supermarket case, paid and left.  We got home and I discovered that the cake that was least expensive was only half ice cream, the other part was actually vanilla cake.  Since the chocolate ice cream part is the part I like least and was the only part I got I was really disappointed.  The universe is telling me to start reading the whole cover or package before I make a decision.  Recommendation is now noted!)

So, the book, since that was the point of the post.  There are thirteen chapters.  11 by friends or family, one by Chunk who is Chelsea's dog, and one of funny emails she has gotten from the censoring department about what needs to be changed in an episode of Chelsea Lately before it can be aired.  Obvious words to be bleeped and discussion points that are inappropriate.  Different friends have been lied to in big and small ways, from Chelsea pretending to be pregnant with more than one of them, to friends moving in with her, to people being sex addicts or amazing winners at betting.  I have to admit that I am a tad gullible, so if I were a friend of Chelsea she would probably get me every time with her lies.  I would be the one thinking out her whole pregnancy ahead of time or worrying for her about this or that.

So what I learned from this book, if you ever become a friend or staffer of Chelsea Handler do not leave your computer on and unlocked when you leave your office or she will send an email to someone from it with some kind of big lie in it like, you just realized you are gay, you are very attracted to someone else, or something equally embarrassing.  Be careful taking medicine from someone else's house, just because the label says one thing, what is in the bottle might be something else.  And lastly, have fun with life.  It is more fun to laugh than to cry!

Product Details

• ISBN-13: 9781455504657
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• Publication date: 5/10/2011
• Sold by: Hachette Digital, Inc.
• Format: eBook
• Pages: 304

My Week with Marilyn by Colin Clark

Overview

Imagine sneaking away to spend seven days with the most famous woman in the world…

In 1956, fresh from Oxford University, twenty-three-year-old Colin Clark began work as a lowly assistant on the set of The Prince and the Showgirl, the film that united Sir Laurence Olivier with Marilyn Monroe. The blonde bombshell and the legendary actor were ill suited from the start. Monroe, on honeymoon with her new husband, the celebrated playwright Arthur Miller, was insecure, often late, and heavily medicated on pills. Olivier, obsessively punctual, had no patience for Monroe and the production became chaotic. Clark recorded it all in two unforgettable diaries—the first a charming fly-on-the- wall account of life as a gofer on the set; the other a heartfelt, intimate, and astonishing remembrance of the week Clark spent escorting Monroe around England, earning the trust and affection of one of the most desirable women in the world. Published together here for the first time, the books are the basis for the upcoming major motion picture My Week with Marilyn starring Michelle Williams, Judi Dench, and Kenneth Branagh.

England was abuzz when Monroe arrived to shoot The Prince and the Showgirl. She hoped working with the legendary Olivier would give her acting further credibility, while he hoped the film would give his career a boost at the box office and some Hollywood glamour. But Monroe, feeling abandoned when Miller left the country for Paris, became difficult on the set. Clark was perceptive in his assessment of what seemed to be going wrong in Monroe’s life: too many hangers-on, intense insecurity, and too many pills. Olivier, meanwhile, was impatient and condescending toward her. At a certain point, feeling isolated and overwhelmed, Monroe turned her attention to Clark, who gave her comfort and solace. Before long, she escaped the set and a remarkable true adventure took place. Monroe and Clark spent an innocent week together in the English countryside and Clark became her confidant and ally. And, like any man would be expected to, he fell a bit in love. Clark understood how best to handle Monroe and became Olivier’s only hope of getting the film finished. Before long, young Colin was in over his head, and his heart may well have been broken by the world’s biggest movie star.

A beguiling memoir that reads like a fable, My Week with Marilyn is above all a love letter to one of our most enduring icons.

My thoughts:
I listened to this on audio from a library download.  I was worried that I listened to it in the wrong order as it started with Colin's week with Marilyn, had an epilogue and a letter he wrote to a friend, and then started back way before Marilyn arrived with how he managed to secure his job on the movie set to begin with.  I enjoyed the beginning portion of the book about Marilyn and Colin's friendship with her.  The story lost something for me when it backtracked to his regular journal about his day to day things and used initials for Marilyn (MM), Sir Lawrence Olivier (SLO) and so forth.  It felt like I was listening to text messages.

In my opinion the book would have been better if it had stuck to the one week and skipped the rest of the journal.  I honestly started fast forwarding to see if something interesting was going to happen and it never really did.  Colin dated a woman from wardrobe, Colin lived in a room in a friend of his parents home, Colin had a nice visit with Vivian Leigh.  It was just a bit too ordinary and dry to make a good read.  I doubt someone, even myself, would want to go back and read six months worth of old journal entries.  The one dealing with Marilyn were a glimpse into the details of someone famous and they were friends who spent time together, so they had meaning and a lot more details than the ones about finding a house to rent and getting up early to be at work.

So, I enjoyed the first part and allowed myself the luxury of skipping some of the mundane details.  I think this would be an interesting movie to see at some point.

Product Details

• ISBN-13: 9781602861497
• Publisher: Weinstein Publishing
• Publication date: 10/4/2011
• Pages: 336

Seriously... I'm Kidding by Ellen Degeneres

Overview

I've experienced a lot the last few years and I have a lot to share. So I hope that you'll take a moment to sit back, relax and enjoy the words I've put together for you in this book. I think you'll find I've left no stone unturned, no door unopened, no window unbroken, no rug unvacuumed, no ivories untickled. What I'm saying is, let us begin, shall we?

My thoughts:
I enjoyed listening to this book.  I read one of Ellen's books a few months ago and enjoyed it too, but it was even more fun to have her read it to you.  I liked listening to how she delivered each of the stories and chapters.  It was like having  a friend sitting there with you and talking about their day.  She had me laughing out loud at times, but the hard part with audio for me is remembering each part individually.  I'm not sure if it is because I am also doing something else while listening, like driving or running or doing some sort of housework, or if it is just missing the act of reading the written word, but I tend to have less recall of non-fiction audio.  Fiction audio I seem to do better recall wise with.  I wonder if this is just me or if other people experience the same issues.  I guess part of it is that, while it was a fun and entertaining read/listen it didn't actually tell anything new it was just meant to entertain which it did very well.  So, while I can't tell you any specifics of why I liked it, I really did and I was sad to hear it come to an end.

 Product Details

• ISBN-13: 9780446585026
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• Publication date: 10/4/2011
• Pages: 256

Then Again by Diane Keaton

Overview:
Mom loved adages, quotes, slogans. There were always little reminders pasted on the kitchen wall. For example, the word THINK. I found THINK thumbtacked on a bulletin board in her darkroom. I saw it Scotch-taped on a pencil box she’d collaged. I even found a pamphlet titled THINK on her bedside table. Mom liked to THINK.


So begins Diane Keaton’s unforgettable memoir about her mother and herself. In it you will meet the woman known to tens of millions as Annie Hall, but you will also meet, and fall in love with, her mother, the loving, complicated, always-thinking Dorothy Hall. To write about herself, Diane realized she had to write about her mother, too, and how their bond came to define both their lives. In a remarkable act of creation, Diane not only reveals herself to us, she also lets us meet in intimate detail her mother. Over the course of her life, Dorothy kept eighty-five journals—literally thousands of pages—in which she wrote about her marriage, her children, and, most probingly, herself. Dorothy also recorded memorable stories about Diane’s grandparents. Diane has sorted through these pages to paint an unflinching portrait of her mother—a woman restless with intellectual and creative energy, struggling to find an outlet for her talents—as well as her entire family, recounting a story that spans four generations and nearly a hundred years.

More than the autobiography of a legendary actress, Then Again is a book about a very American family with very American dreams. Diane will remind you of yourself, and her bonds with her family will remind you of your own relationships with those you love the most.

My thoughts:
I listened to this audio book from the library and I love how it was read by the author.  It really catches the nuances of her feelings, especially as her mother succumbed to Alzheimer's and her children entered her life.  I don't think it would have been as powerful or as moving if it had been read by someone else.

I love hearing and reading about real people and to see someone look back on his or her life and illuminate the highs and lows and a lot of the in between humanizes people who might seem like just stars.  Even stars have the problems we do, aging parents, children and their issues, weight concerns and relationships that go both right and wrong, and it can be easy to forget that when we see them onscreen and think that they must have it all.

I picked up a copy of this book to look at while browsing at a store and I loved the pictures of the journals that both Dorthy and Diane kept and I loved the descriptions of the pages and collages included in the journals.  In this time of so much more being kept electronically I sometimes miss the feel of paper and pens and pencils, of gluing in images and creating with my hands.  I used to do a lot of scrap booking, but lately I haven't and I find that I am really missing my creative outlet. 

This was a nice celebration of life and the differences from then and now, from Diane's grandparents, to her parents to how she is now a parent of young children in her 50's and 60's.  I definitely recommend the audio format!

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781400068784
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Publication date: 11/15/2011
Pages: 304

I Remember Nothing: And Other Reflections by Nora Ephron

Overview

Nora Ephron returns with her first book since the astounding success of I Feel Bad About My Neck, taking a hilarious look at the past, the present, and the future, bemoaning the vicissitudes of modern life, and recalling with her signature clarity and wisdom everything she hasn’t (yet) forgotten.

Filled with insights and observations that instantly ring true—and could have come only from Nora Ephron—I Remember Nothing is pure joy.

My thoughts:
I really enjoyed I Feel Bad About My Neck and wanted to read this one.  I had the chance to check it out as a digital audio book from the library to  listen to while running.  It almost felt like it went too quickly.  This time I couldn't relate quite as much as I could to her last book, there were less essays on purses and everyday things, but it was engaging and fun.  I really enjoyed the first section about what she cannot remember and how she will pause and go google the answer and come back to continue.  I have days when I am so tired I can't seem to find the word for things, not because I forgot but because so much is already going on in my mind and I can't seem to slow it down.

This book reminded me of Joan Didion's latest book too.  They are both talking about aging and how it is affecting them and how they see themselves.  Nora talks about being old now, not really old which is 80, but 69 and old to young people.  We all pick ages that are old, then reach them and then a new age is old.  I am pretty sure that Nora mentions Joan Didion's husband in one of the passages as someone who was at an event she went to.  One problem I have with non-fiction audio is that when I just hear names I am not as good at remembering them as I am when I read them.

Nora's portrait of what it was like to be a writer in the early sixties is something I never thought that much about.  How women were the mail sorters and fact checkers while the men got to be writers.  I'm glad we've come as far as we have!

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780307742803
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date: 11/1/2011
Pages: 160
Series: Vintage Series

Blue Nights by Joan Didion

Overview

From one of our most powerful writers, a work of stunning frankness about losing a daughter. Richly textured with bits of her own childhood and married life with her husband, John Gregory Dunne, and daughter, Quintana Roo, this new book by Joan Didion examines her thoughts, fears, and doubts regarding having children, illness, and growing old.

Blue Nights opens on July 26, 2010, as Didion thinks back to Quintana’s wedding in New York seven years before. Today would be her wedding anniversary. This fact triggers vivid snapshots of Quintana’s childhood—in Malibu, in Brentwood, at school in Holmby Hills. Reflecting on her daughter but also on her role as a parent, Didion asks the candid questions any parent might about how she feels she failed either because cues were not taken or perhaps displaced. “How could I have missed what was clearly there to be seen?” Finally, perhaps we all remain unknown to each other. Seamlessly woven in are incidents Didion sees as underscoring her own age, something she finds hard to acknowledge, much less accept.

Blue Nights—the long, light evening hours that signal the summer solstice, “the opposite of the dying of the brightness, but also its warning”—like The Year of Magical Thinking before it, is an iconic book of incisive and electric honesty, haunting and profoundly moving.

My thoughts:
This book felt a lot like The Year of Magical Thinking to me, except this time Didion was working through the death of her daughter and her own aging instead of the death of her husband.  The writing worked outward in circles.  She kept coming back to some of the same facts or phrases, but provided a richer background and landscape for those things.  The flowers and plants that grew at one of their homes, that her daughter then used for her wedding, and how she looked on that day.  How she questioned how she really did as a parent, like we all do.  Are we doing enough?  What are we missing when we are in the middle of it?  Did we make the right decision.

The book really flowed from chapter to chapter, even though it was in no way taking place chronologically, sometimes Quinitana was a little girl, or a baby, or sick in the ICU as an adult.  They lived in different places full of different memories, but they all revolve around her little girl and her understanding of her role as a parent.

Central to it all are fears about death and aging and becoming frail.  Having lost her mother, husband and daughter within ten years of each other took her family and left her wondering who she should list as an emergency contact at the hospital.  The people she would normally use are gone.

No one is free of worries or fears.  She talks about how she can;t open a closet or a drawer without coming across mementos for memories she no longer wants to have.  How she wishes she had lived that moment more fully instead of worrying about saving something that is now trivial. Each time I ended a chapter I kept right on going.  I read the whole book in one day in on and off spurts.  The pacing was great.  This is the second e-book I've borrowed from our library and I am loving this feature!

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780307267672
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date: 11/1/2011
Pages: 208

My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One Night Stands by Chelsea Handler

Overview

In this raucous collection of true-life stories, actress and comedian Chelsea Handler recounts her time spent in the social trenches with that wild, strange, irresistible, and often gratifying beast: the one-night stand.

My thoughts:I originally shied away from this book because I thought it was only going to be about men Handler had slept with just once, I enjoyed the two other books I read so much that I decided to give it a try.  It was just as funny to read as the other two and a lot of fun to read.  While it does focus a lot on sex, that isn't the only thing it is about and a lot of it is funny moments before, during or after sex.  Having the dog steal your panties, walking into an apartment that you know you've been to before but can't recall when, bringing your gay friend home for your sister's wedding and finding him misbehaving all over the place were all featured in these stories.  I now wish I had read the books in order, this one jumps off into where she was in books two and three.  They can all stand alone just fine, but it would have been nice to see her growing with the books instead of going backwards.  That said, I think some of the stories from the later books come from this same time period.  I like that Chelsea is fine with who she is and doesn't apologize for her behavior, if only we could all feel that confident in ourselves!

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781582346182
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Publication date: 6/28/2005
Pages: 213

uncharted terriTORI by Tori Spelling with Hilary Liftin

Synopsis from Paperbackswap.com:
Welcome to Los Angeles, birthplace and residence of Tori Spelling. — It’s not every Hollywood starlet whose name greets you on a Virgin Airways flight into la-la land. But Tori Spelling has come to accept that her life is a spectacle. Her name is her brand, and business is booming. Too bad when your job is to be yourself, you can't exactly take a break.


Tori finally has everything she thought she wanted—a loving family and a successful career—but trying to live a normal life in Hollywood is a little weird. With the irresistible wit, attitude, and humor that fans have come to love, the New York Times bestselling author of sTORI telling and Mommywood is back with more hilarious, heartwarming, and candid stories of juggling work, marriage, motherhood, and reality television cameras.

Tori comes clean about doing her time on jury duty, stalking herself on Twitter, discovering her former 90210 castmates’ "I Hate Tori" club, contracting swine flu, and contacting Farrah Fawcett from the dead. Like many mothers, she struggles to find balance (Stars, they’re just like us!)—only most women don’t have to battle it out with paparazzi at the grocery store. She talks openly about the darker side of life in the spotlight: media scrutiny over her weight and her marriage to Dean McDermott, her controversial relationship with Dean’s ex-wife, and her unfolding reconciliation with her mother.

Having it all isn’t always easy—especially when you’re a perfectionist—but with the help of her unconventional family and friends, an underwear-clad spiritual cleansing or two, and faith in herself, she’s learning to find her happy ending. Because when you’re Tori Spelling, every day brings uncharted terriTORI

My thoughts:
I have been wanting to read this one for awhile now and last week I bought it used on Amazon.  I read both of her other two books and loved them from the start, this one I was a bit slower to warm up to.  It did kick in and I was hooked, but not right from the start.  I can't identify what it was about the start that didn't catch me, it could have just been built up anticipation since I thought the others were so funny.

Tori admits to being a workaholic who has trouble ceding control to others.  I think it is easy to get caught in the trap that we should be able to do everything and hard to accept that the way someone else might do something might not be the way we would have.  But in doing everything by yourself you create a lot of extra stress.  I can totally identify with this, but without all of Tori's perfectionist issues as well.  I know I am not getting it all done and not getting it all done perfectly, but it is still easier to do things myself than try to explain how I want them done.

Tori has been having headaches for ten years now and has gone through a lot of doctors and other types of practitioners in her quest to be cured.  She has another visit with the the voodoo practitioner she met with in one of her other books and this time is even more bizarre than the chicken being killed in front of her.  She over thinks a lot of things in the same way so many of us do, but unlike the rest of us, she admits it and admits she is trying to work on it.

I'd like to say she is just like anyone else, and in some ways she is, she worries about her family and her health and what people are thinking about her, but she lives in a world most of us can't imagine.  Last week I forgot to put make-up on before going to work one morning.  I did two loads of laundry and got the kids ready and walked out the door without it.  In the grand scheme of things it really didn't matter, it bothered me and made me self-conscious and I did consider coming home to remedy the situation but then I would have been late, but it wasn't like there was anyone hanging out to take a picture of me or I had to fear a headline about how I must be sick because I was out looking haggard.  I can't imagine the extra stress of worrying that complete strangers are judging you.

Details:
ISBN-13: 9781439187715

ISBN-10: 1439187711
Publication Date: 6/15/2010
Pages: 256

The Funny Thing Is... by Ellen Degeneres

Overview from Barnes and Noble:
Ellen DeGeneres published her first book of comic essays, the #1 bestselling My Point...and I Do Have One, way back in 1996. Not one to rest on her laurels, the witty star of stage and screen has since dedicated her life to writing a hilarious new book. That book is this book.


After years of painstaking, round-the-clock research, surviving on a mere twenty minutes of sleep a night, and collaborating with lexicographers, plumbers, and mathematicians, DeGeneres has crafted a work that is both easy on the ears and very funny. Along with her trademark ramblings, The Funny Thing Is...contains hundreds of succinct insights into her psyche, and offers innovative features including:

• More than 50,000 simple, short words arranged in sentences that form paragraphs.

• Thousands of observations on everyday life — from terrible fashion trends to how to handle seating arrangements for a Sunday brunch with Paula Abdul, Diane Sawyer, and Eminem.

• All twenty-six letters of the alphabet read aloud.

Sure to make you laugh, The Funny Thing Is...is Ellen in top form.

My thoughts:
So yesterday when I went to the library to find the Chelsea Handler book I wanted to check out I discovered the call number that houses similar titles.  Not that I didn't know they were there somewhere, but I love stumbling across books that I am interested in but hadn't been looking for.  It is like hitting the library jackpot!

I enjoyed this book, it didn't make me laugh quite as hard as Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang did yesterday, but there were definitely parts that set me off.  It was interesting too to read Ellen's book because a few months ago I read her wife Portia de Rossi's book and she was mentioned in it. 

Against Ellen's wishes I read this book while driving and flossing my teeth at the same time.  Not really, but she cautions against it right from the front and urges us all to floss.  Not bad advice.  Also a good point, if you are using something to make sure you can use your phone hands free you may also need to concentrate on it as well!

I think I'm going to be looking for some more of her books at the library next week, just don't tell her since she seems to be very worried about if you have paid for the book!

Details
•Pub. Date: September 2004
•Publisher: Simon & Schuster
•Format: Paperback , 192pp
•ISBN-13: 9780743247634
•ISBN: 0743247639

Meet The Author
Ellen DeGeneres's first book, My Point...and I Do Have One, was an instant national bestseller that spent more than six months on the New York Times bestseller list. DeGeneres has won an Emmy Award, a Peabody Award, and a People's Choice Award for her work as a writer and actress on her television series Ellen, and received Emmy nominations as host of the 39th Annual Grammy Awards, as an executive producer of HBO's If These Walls Could Talk 2, and as star and executive producer of her critically acclaimed one-woman HBO special The Beginning. DeGeneres made history when her on-screen persona Ellen Morgan became the first openly gay leading character on television, but her groundbreaking legacy had already begun in 1986, on the Tonight Show, when she became the first and only female comic invited by Johnny Carson to sit down with him after her stand-up performance. In September 2003, DeGeneres launched The Ellen DeGeneres Show, her own nationally syndicated daytime talk show.